“Well, that was a waste of time and fuel,” said Red Sherwood as he dropped into a chair at the table in the officer’s wardroom, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Gridley and the rest of the Allied force had just completed a wide curve to the northeast and then the northwest without finding a hint of the enemy.

“I dunno, Red,” said Jack Cameron, who was already seated. “All those Marines are disembarking at Pearl now, safe and sound. Who knows, maybe there were some Japs out here.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sherwood, “if there were, they’re gone now.”

“What I want to know,” said Ensign Puhls, refilling his cup, “is what we’re doing now. We’re still headed west by northwest.”

Cameron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “If the Skipper knows, he isn’t telling. My guess is that, since we’re out here anyway, we might swing up to the Aleutians and see if we can catch the Japs napping.”

“Makes sense,” said Sherwood,” the Japs have hit Umnak a couple of times, and they’ve been damned quiet everywhere else.”

“At least it’s summer now,” said Puhls.

“Summer in the Aleutians is kind of a relative term,” said Cameron with a laugh. “But yes, better to go there now than in January.”

“Do you suppose we’re going to be invading up there soon?” asked Sherwood. When and where the American forces would begin to counterattack was a favorite topic among the men.

“I don’t know,” said Cameron. “Everything seems to be going to the South Pacific. Planes, ships, men…I’m betting something’s up down there.”

“Maybe Australia,” suggested Puhls.

“Maybe,” said Cameron. “My guess is we’ll find out about it when we get the orders, and not before.”

“Loose lips sink ships and all that,” agreed Puhls. Sherwood laughed.

“Only if the Japs have better intelligence than we do,” he said. “Jap carriers off the West Coast, what a joke.”

Here, by the way, is the report that got poor Lieutenant Conright into so much trouble:

SIG INT REPORT FOR May 31, 42

Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Ominato (119,54). 20th Army is located at Port Arthur(99,44). Mongol Garrison Army is located at Kalgan(95,37). 21st Ind.AA Gun Co is located at Nagasaki/Sasebo(102,58). 8th Ind.Mixed Brigade is located at Lanchow(81,34). 57th Infantry Regiment is located at Sunwu(113,34). 25th Division is located at Mutankiang(111,42). Radio call sign of DD Yuzuki detected at 210,105. Radio transmissions detected at Daly Waters (76,131). Tsushima Fortress is located at Tsushima(103,56). 11th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion is located at Yenki(110,44). 2nd Ching An Tui Brigade is located at Paotow(92,34). 19th Ind.Mixed Brigade is located at 85,56. 51st Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Takao(84,65). Radio transmissions detected at Yenki (110,44). Radio transmissions detected at Nanchang (85,54). 25th RGC Temp. Division is located at Soochow(92,54). 9th Border Defense Fortress is located at 110,45. 26th Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Mukden(104,42). 5th Medium Field Artillery Regiment is located at Fushun(105,42). 15th Const Co is located at Singapore(50,84). 31st Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Hakodate(119,53). RGC Tax Police Regiment is located at Shanghai(92,55). 10904 men are based at Fusan (103,55). 2336 men are based at Arshaan (105,33). 1st Mortar Battalion is planning for an attack on Tienshui. 4th Brigade is located at Changchun(106,41). 5th Fleet is located at Ominato(119,54)

I think just like RL you have to put together a story. Does it make sense? Along with the occasional FOW there are lots of juicy tibbits that many of Allied players have used to intercept IJ operations and/or prepare just the right forces to attack a position. However, I am begining to think that the Allies get sooooo mcuh stuff that the IJ are in trouble whether the Allies make use of intelligence or not ...

Which does make me curious as to the whereabouts of Cuttlefish (SS-171), historically an operational vessel in this time period. Is that unit now in Japanese waters contributing to the statistical base on US torpedo failures?

_____________________________

"Leveling large cities has a tendency to alienate the affections of the inhabitants and does not create an atmosphere of international good will after the war." -Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery

Well, he is still playing the game as Cribtop is still putting up nearly daily reports. My guess is that life has been too busy for CF to put in the effort at the moment that a story of this magnitude requires. Of course, it could just be that Gridley was sunk and he's been trying to come up with the right words to describe the loss...

RE: Wait, I can't read Cuttlefish's new AAR? - Cribtop ... - 1/10/2012 3:29:35 PM On another note, CF informed me by e-mail that he's been letting his AAR languish because of his newborn grand baby but now plans to get back to the writing desk. BANZAI!

We are all glad to hear both that your grand baby is doing well, and that you may be able to return to giving us junkies our fix.

“Well, sir, that was a waste of time and fuel,” said Lieutenant Steubens. He was speaking to Captain Stickney in Stickney’s cabin. Gridley and the rest of the Allied warships had just completed a long and uneventful cruise that had taken them across the North Pacific and below the Aleutians and to almost within sight of the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Pearl Harbor, at long last, was now just a few hours ahead.

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” said Stickney. Gridley’s captain was dressed in khaki trousers and a t-shirt. Before him on his small desk was the stack of reports that Steubens had just given him. “I don’t think it’s entirely true, though,” he continued. Steubens gave him an inquiring look.

“For one thing,” said Stickney, “it gave us a chance to finish working in the new members of the crew. I’d like to give them some combat experience, sure, but after a month in those waters every one of them is a better sailor.”

“That’s true, sir,” conceded Steubens.

“And for another thing, we spent a week sailing around between the Aleutians and the Kuriles,” said the captain. “Everybody complains that we didn’t find a damned thing. But that’s rather interesting in itself, don’t you think? No Jap convoys, no search planes, nothing. We were right in their back yard and they never even knew we were there.”

“I see the point,” conceded the XO. “Whatever the Japs are up to, it isn’t in the north.”

“It’s negative evidence,” Stickney said, “but it’s still interesting. And anyway, we’re pretty sure now those rumors of Japanese raiders are just rumors.”

“It’s sure going to be nice to be home, though,” said Steubens. Captain Stickney heaved a sigh.

“It will be at that,” he said. “And we’re scheduled to have those depth charge throwers installed as soon as we tie up, so we’ll have at least a few days in port.”

“I’ll draw up a liberty schedule,” said Steubens. The captain nodded.

“Coordinate personnel requirements for the yard work with Yards and Docks,” said Stickney. “That comes first. But be as generous as you can.”

“Yes sir,” said Steubens. The young XO felt cheerful as he left. This was one paperwork chore he was going to be happy to do.

The Mark 6 depth charge projector, better known as the K-gun, had actually been around since 1936. The Navy had not started producing them in quantity, however, until shortly before the outbreak of the war. Now it was Gridley’s turn to be equipped with the weapon.

The K-gun was basically a smoothbore black powder mortar that allowed a depth charge to be hurled a modest distance, from 60 to 150 yards, to one side of a ship. This allowed ships equipped with them to attack targets that weren’t directly below them. This was useful because it allowed greater flexibility in pursuing ASW attacks and because it was difficult for sonar to track targets that were directly underneath the ship.

The new projectors used the Mark 6 depth charges, as opposed to the larger Mark 7 charges Gridley used in her over-the-stern racks. Except for the amount of explosive (300 pounds of TNT for the Mark 6, as opposed to 600 pounds for the Mark 7) and the size of the case the two types of depth charges were identical, with one important difference. The depth charges had water inlet valves at both ends, to allow water pressure to fire the depth charge at the appropriate depth setting. On the Mark 7 these valves had safety covers with knobbed ends which were automatically stripped off as the depth charge rattled down the racks and off the stern. When used with the K-gun the Mark 6 charges were fitted with safety covers lacked the knob and had to be removed by hand before the projector was loaded and fired.

Gridley was being fitted with four K-guns, all astern, two each on the starboard and port sides. These, combined with the over-the-stern racks, gave the destroyer the ability to deploy six depth charges at once, with a combined 2400 pounds of TNT. Already Gridley’s crew was learning to fear and despise Japanese submarines. They looked forward to a chance to use this new equipment against them.

Gridley at Pearl during refit. Note the increase in ASW rating from 2 to 6. The crew’s day/night experience has also increased since the last refit, from 59/48 to 59/55 (it was 59/37 at the start of the war).

Excerpt from War on Two Oceans, by Morris Elliot Samuelson (1963, Little, Brown, and Co.):

Cincpac Intelligence had reported the possibility of Japanese raiders off the West Coast at the end of May and the Navy had responded by increasing submarine patrols in the area and recalling the aircraft carriers back to Pearl Harbor. But after the carriers had spent several futile weeks first covering the main convoy routes between California and Hawaii and then scouring the North Pacific, most in the US high command were ready to dismiss the intelligence reports as the result of overheated imaginations. Legend even has it that the young intelligence officer responsible was assigned to a weather station in Alaska as punishment.

The reports, however, were not erroneous. The Japanese had not only sent several armed merchant cruisers eastward as raiders, they had dispatched a modest force consisting of three auxiliary carriers to raid the busy West Coast – Hawaii convoy routes. These ships had been converted from passenger liners into small carriers before the war. They were deemed by the Japanese high command to be too small and too slow to participate in fleet actions, but it was thought they might be able to do some damage against merchant shipping – especially since the American carriers were believed to be in the South Pacific, too far away to respond.

On July 8, some 1100 miles off the coast of northern California, the Japanese raiders made contact with Convoy 111. This convoy consisted of eight freighters and two escorts, destroyers Cushing and Perkins. The convoy was loaded with a miscellany of war material and was bound from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor. The destroyers escaped but Japanese torpedo planes sank all eight of the merchantmen. The attack cost 112 lives.

The American carrier force, which had just returned to Pearl a few days earlier, turned around and hurried back north in a bid to find and destroy the intruders before they could escape. The interlopers were alerted to their danger when the American carriers found one of the armed merchant cruisers. It was sunk, but not before broadcasting a warning. There then followed a week of tense cat and mouse pursuit between the two forces.

The American task was perhaps more difficult than it sounds. The North Pacific is a wide and bleak expanse of ocean, without islands or landmarks. Trying to find three small Japanese carriers and a handful of escorts in those waters was a little like looking for a needle in a haystack when the needle does not want to be found. But finally, just when the American carriers had given up and were heading back home, they stumbled right into the Japanese force, which was trying to sneak past them to the south.

The resulting battle was the first carrier duel in history, and it was an unequal contest. The Americans had all six of their carriers present, while the Japanese had only the small carriers Hosho, Unyo, and Taiyo. A small air attack against Yorktown was brushed aside and the counterattack by dive and torpedo bombers quickly sank all three Japanese carriers. Two of their accompanying destroyers were also sunk.

The modest victory was greeted back home in America with an enthusiasm out of proportion to its military significance. Not only was the public eager for any kind of naval triumph, but the loss of Convoy 111 had reignited fears of an attack on the West Coast. The destruction of the raiding force calmed those fears and gave evidence that the Japanese were not invincible at sea.